Archive for April, 2009

It’s been a pain, these last three days. Around noon on Tuesday my account was frozen by Blizzard due to lack of funds. I got hit by extra bills this month and my account was overdrawn, so they couldn’t take their payment. Thus, I’ve been WoW-less since Tuesday. I did take the time to make the newest comic in Gav’s World of Warcraft, so check that out, will you? It’ll make this downtime seem worth it. lol I get paid tomorrow so I’ll be back in the game then; just a few more hours, Gav! I’ll be back, I swear!!

I was in two Wintergrasp matches today, one defensive and one offensive. The defensive one didn’t go so well. We lost, but more importantly I died over and over. I nabbed a number of kills but nothing to talk about. What amazed me was my more recent assault run I was on. Here’s how it went down.

I was in Dun Morogh nabbing eggs for my Noblegarden achievements when I got notified by my guild leader, who was on one of his alts, that Wintergrasp had just started and to come if I wanted to join. I got there in no time and… we won. That’s it. I was no sooner there then we won. It had to be the fastest match I’d ever seen, and not just because I came late. I saw we only had six tanks, but apparently that was enough. What, did the Horde sleep through this match? Obviously they didn’t, because in the minute or two between arriving and winning I got stunned and killed once by an undead rogue, and again by a Tauren warrior. I got one kill, but dying twice as much as I kill sucks. But, we won… and that’s what I go there for. Death to the Horde! lol

It’s time for the Noblegarden holiday in WoW, and I was going to pass it up. After all, I’d toyed with it on the PTR, so why rehash my work? Well, one of my guildies was doing the egg hunt and listening to him on guild chat got me started on it again. I got the first quests done in a heartbeat, and I’m now a Chocolate Lover and halfway to being a Chocoholic, and I got part of the Shake Your Bunny-Maker achievement by hitting the alliance race chicks in Kharonos. Well, all but the human chick but I figured I could get that one at any time. lol I guess I got lured back into the holiday, huh?

Oh, BTW… anyone want roast rabbit? I cooked some myself.

Burn, bunny, burn!

I wanted to make some statements about my career as Gavelier and this blog. No, neither is coming to an end. I just want to thank those that have read my exploits from level 48 on Oct. 4, 2008 to today. I’ve gone seven months and 32 levels with everyone, and I have loved it so much.  I know this sounds like a resignation speech or something, but it’s not. I just feel that this is an appropriate time to thank everyone. With the sobby stuff out of the way, let’s get to what I’ve been up to since hitting 80.

Can you guess where one of my first stops was at 80? No? C’mon… you knew I had to hit up Wintergrasp again, right? The Alliance was on the attack, and what an attack it was. I dealt killing blows to many of the Horde as we swept in and took the fort with no resistance. As I say in raid chat after each successful match, “Hell yeah!”. I never died, and I was able to kill with aplomb, seeing as how my DPS was now over 1.35k (in mostly quest gear; no dungeon drops or PvP stuff at all), from the 800 or so it was while prot. I need some new gear (badly), but it looks like I’m in good shape to tackle whatever the game tosses my way, skill-wise. Look out world, here comes Gavelier!

BTW, my guild was very nice and complimentary about my hitting the level cap. I got lots of ‘gratz’ and the like, but my favorite comment came when I got my dual specs. One dude said, “gratz, and screw you.” lol He was saving up to do that, but I beat him to it. That’s the kind of guild I’m in. We’re a little odd, but that’s ok. I mean, we are Savagely Dysfuntional, right? I thought so.

Hey everyone. I had  a spare one thousand gold laying around, so guess what? Dual Specs FTW! I now am prot and ret, meaning I’ve got my old Forged Cobalt Claymore back in service. Yes! That’s about my best achievement to date.

Oh yeah, that’s right. No it’s not.

This is.

Level 80 at last!! I dinged in Icecrown, killing random mobs. I did a ton of quests in Storm Peaks to get within spitting distance, and a few final quests plus random mob killing equaled level 80. Ding!

Of course, this isn’t something that can be captured in a picture, let alone words. So let video share my day! I filmed the climatic moment for all to share.

I’m happy now. Later, all.

Just an FYI: Gav dinged 79 this morning and about 25% through to level 80. Yes, I’ve almost got Gav to the level cap! Look forward to my first update at 80 in the next day or so.

Wintergrasp. Again. I don’t know what my fascination is with that place. I just enjoy it so much! Anyway, we were defending in my latest match. I learned early on that I was able to solo level 80s at last. I took on a couple at full health and leveled them. At one point, a dwarf paladin just stood next to me as I dueled a troll hunter. What, was I a side show?  He did heal me after the fight, though, which was nice. At one point I was pounding on a blood elf death knight and had her almost dead when she healed up a good bit and cast Army of the Dead on me. No matter; I finished her off, which dismissed the extra undead. I also rode gunner on a Siege Engine for a while. At one point I was double teamed, but managed to finish off one of ‘em before finally being felled. I got more killing blows this match then ever before. This was partly because I realized something about my low DPS that I could fix (more on this later), but also due to my higher HP (I had 22k+ HP, raid buffs considered) and judicious use of bandages, heals and my bubble. I did try to use exorcism a couple of times out of habit, but naturally it was to no avail. We held tight for most of the match, but the Horde broke into the final section of the fort with about five or so minutes remaining. It was close, with them getting the interior keep’s door half down, but we captured all of the towers first, claiming another victory for the Alliance.

About my low DPS, I had been using Seal of Justice as my prot seal of choice for it’s stunning ability, but hadn’t factored in it’s effect on my damage output. I recently switched to Seal of Command (yeah, I’ve gotten that deep into the ret tree while prot) and I’m back up to around 1000 DPS from 600. I would use Seal of the Martyr but without Art of War’s ability to give me quick and easy heals, I run out of health too fast.

Is exorcism overpowered in PvP? Blizzard seems to think so. They’ve slipped a nerf into their latest 3.1.1 patch that invalidates it in PvP. Now, someone explain this to me. Are there any other powers in the game not available in PvP that work in PvE? My opinion is that Blizzard still finds pallys a little too bursty. How, I don’t know. The highest played other classes is up to level 20 (my human warlock Crane), but there my biggest difference I noticed was that the cooldowns/DoTs crossed up and you didn’t end up with everything on cooldown at the same time and have to rely on white damage from your weapon for a short time until something is ready again. At that point pallys roll through their rotation again and wait. Again. My answer would be to either switch up the cool downs, make pally powers work differently enough that we’re forced to decide what to use when, or add more DoTs. As a newly prot-specced pally, I’ve found that I need to hold back on Avenger’s Shield for when I need it’s silencing effect because of the longer cool down. That’s one idea that works. How could the other spells be improved as such? I don’t have an answer. Does anyone else?

I forgot to post this yesterday, but I hit 1000g yesterday morning and bought cold weather flying, so the ol’ Rattle Bucket is back in the air! Blizzard actually made these things more obnoxious in patch 3.1, changing the sounds to be even more grating. Smooth move, Blizz. In other random news, I was doing a fishing daily (which happened to be in Lake Wintergrasp) with about ten other Alliance players when the Horde showed up. They didn’t attack us at first, just standing around taunting and posing. A hunter for our side opened things up, taking the first shot at a Tauren warrior on a Mechano-hog, which drew two Blood Elves out of hiding. A quick scrum ensued, with us killing the BEs and the Tauren running for the hills. We promptly went back to fishing, and I caught the 10 Terrorfish I was there for. I didn’t net much outstanding in the Bag of Fishing Treasures, just more Deviate Fish and Pygmy Oil. Later, all.

I was in Wintergrasp this morning, and besides learning that I was now able to collect the quests for Stone Keeper’s Shards, I learned what it’s like to be on the wrong end of Tenacity. The Horde had it stacked 9x, and it was a bear. I was getting one-shotted by mages, a Blood Elf paladin was holding a workshop by himself, and everyone was being slaughtered. We couldn’t kill enough Horde to get bigger tanks like Siege Engines and Demolishers because there weren’t enough Horde to kill, and those that were there were insanely overpowered. Once we had the big guns (mostly from killing the easy-to-kill Horde guard NPCs roaming around in the open), though, it was on and we took out both side walls to the keep. In the end push, with under five minutes remaining, I drove a siege engine into the keep and helped break down the final wall. We won, but I was far from safe. During the scrum at the wall my tank was destroyed and I was set upon by both Tactical Office Kilrath and Commander Dardosh at the same time. Two lvl. 80 elites at once!! People just walked past me like I wasn’t in peril or anything… just another day at the office. One fresh level 78 against two level 80 elites. Yup, nothing unfair there. The funny part? I didn’t die. lol I didn’t kill them, obviously, but I lived long enough to get out of their aggro range. It took all my mana (spent casting Flash of Light over and over, interspersed with an occasional Holy Light)  my Divine Shield and my Lay on Hands spell, but I lived. Yes! That was my biggest victory of the day. In a day where I killed Artruis the SOB, hit level 78 and beat the Horde at Wintergrasp while they were hugely buffed, living to tell the tale was my biggest success. And isn’t surviving what it’s all about?